Spiffy:

Iffy:

Rune-keeper will probably still upset lore purists; difficult to see where Rune-keepers fit in raid structure.

Moria is a bad place. Of course, anyone who's ever read the adventures of a certain furry-footed hero and his eight companions is aware of that. The former homeland of the Dwarves was once the most magnificent structure in Middle-earth, but after a disastrous mistake in which they unleashed the Balrog, the place was abandoned to orcs and worse-than-orcs. That's what makes it irresistible to Tolkien junkies and gamers of all stripes, so when we were offered the chance to take a hands-on tour through the mines of Moria courtesy of The Lord of the Rings Online creators at Turbine, it would have taken an army of hobbits to hold us back.

Our adventure began with a brand-new level 60 Rune-keeper character, one of the two new classes that will be introduced in the expansion pack. We quickly took advantage of the opportunity to check out a few of the new systems, such as the revamped Traits. Traits are a sort of talent system that offer swappable character bonuses for completing various tasks in the game's Book of Deeds. Traits have now been classified into one of three "trait tracks." The Rune-keeper, for example, has "Cleansing Fires" (DPS), "Benedictions of Peace" (healing) or "Solitary Thunder" (balanced) traits. While the player is free to slot any traits they wish, they'll get "line bonuses" for slotting two, three or four traits from the same family. Slotting five traits from the same family gets the player access to three new "Legendary Traits," incredibly powerful skills that can make or break certain situations.

We also took the opportunity to check out the Rune-keeper class itself. This class has been the subject of a great deal of controversy since it was first announced because early descriptions of it used terms such as "magic-user." For hard-core Tolkien fans concerned about not breaking with established Tolkien canon, such a description sends up big red flags with visions of Turbine importing a World of Warcraft Mage into the game. Based on our (admittedly cursory) examination of a level 60 Rune-keeper, such alarmism is misplaced. The Rune-keeper's powers seem to be based on bags of runes that describe some fundamental element of reality and a stone that the player uses to channel their power. That power is then used to chain together crude descriptions, tapping into the primal forces of nature to slightly rewrite reality. Thus all the Rune-keepers powers use linguistically themed terms like "Chilling Rhetoric," "Closing Remarks" and "Thunderous Words" to generate various magical effects.

In keeping with Turbine's class design philosophy, the Rune-keeper is a "hybrid" class, able to fulfill a number of roles from "glass cannon" damage dealer to main healer. This is accomplished by chaining together a variety of skills in order to build up to a particular finisher. Complications arise when players realize that many of their "opening remark" skills can lead to different conclusions. Each skill used will slowly move an "Attunement" meter back and forth toward red (DPS) or green (healing), which will give more power to skills of that type. Since certain skills will require a balance meter to be at a specific level to use, players need to be aware of not only what's going on on the battlefield but also where their meter stands. Depending on whether they're in red or green they may not have access to the finishing moves they need when they need them. A Rune-keeper acting as a healer in a raid, then, needs to be careful about using damaging spells as they drain his or her ability to heal at critical junctures.

After we had fooled around with our Rune-keeper for a while, it was finally time to head into Moria. Our first stop was in the forges, where the Dwarves of Khazad-dum constructed artifacts of great power. Anyone expecting the classic Dungeons & Dragons forges with little anvils and rows of tools isn't prepared for what's in store for them in Moria. Everything in the expansion pack is built on a massive scale and the forges themselves are a stunning collection of industrial architecture and metallic grates that cross huge chasms filled with lavafalls and rivers of molten rock. The Orcs in this region have actually mutated thanks to their long exposure to the heat of the forge and the dire influence of the Balrog. Their misshapen faces and jet-black skin are cracked from the heat and the tissue underneath glows red.